At Rougham C of E School our planned curriculum offer is based on the knowledge that physical and mental wellbeing are at the heart of effective learning for life. It has the Tilian Framework for Independence at its core and delivers all areas of the National Curriculum including PHSE, RE and RSE. We teach the curriculum through a wide variety of teaching strategies based on active learning, talk, engagement and challenge. Underpinning the taught curriculum is our positive, nurturing growth mind-set which is taught explicitly to the children as Building Learning Power; resilience, resourcefulness, relationships, reflectiveness and remembering are habits of mind that will ensure academic, social and personal excellence for all.
The English Curriculum is taught so that all children extend their written and spoken communication skills as well as their understanding of what they read. They are enabled to extend and reflect on their experiences and gain essential skills for adult life. Throughout the school, the skills of English are taught systematically in line with the requirements of the National Curriculum. A broad and balanced approach is used in teaching reading and writing to ensure that every child has the best chance of succeeding.
Phonics and Reading
Children are introduced to phonics in the EYFS through a daily whole class session which follows the Jolly Phonics programme and this continues into Year 1 and Year 2, using Jolly Grammar. Decodable reading books are used alongside the children’s phonic teaching and help the children’s reading fluency to develop.
Reciprocal reading techniques are introduced in the EYFS and run throughout the school. Children’s comprehension is developed during whole class reading sessions through the key skills of predicting, questioning, clarifying and summarising. These skills are introduced by high quality modelling in EYFS and KS1 and are built on in LKS2 so that by UKS2 the children can work in small groups with each child being responsible for a reciprocal reading skill.
Writing
At Rougham Primary we follow the Write Stuff approach for fiction units. This was introduced in September 2020 to bring clarity and consistency to the teaching of writing across the school. The approach guides children through the whole writing process – generating ideas, planning, writing, editing and re-drafting. The tools for effective writing are displayed in Writing Rainbows using the FANTASTICS, the GRAMMARISTICS and the BOOMTASTICS.
The FANTASTICS are used for description and allow children to use the nine lenses to explore characters, setting and plot.
The GRAMMARISTICS cover grammar objectives beyond National Curriculum objectives and are taught in context.
The BOOMTASTICS contain a range of figurative language used for fiction writing. However, some of the lenses are used in non-fiction writing too – such as puns for newspaper headlines and persuasive adverts.
The units consist of sentence stacking lessons, which focus on the skills of writing and produce a paragraph of writing in each lesson based around one plot point. Experience Days are built into The Write Stuļ¬ teaching sequence to enhance enjoyment, raise excitement and preparedness for writing. These also ensure that all children have the same knowledge and ideas to incorporate into their writing.
The approach is built on high expectations of quality for writing. All pupils are involved in collaboratively building vocabulary vaults enabling them to access a rich bank of language. The children write their own sentence following a class model and have the opportunity to 'deepen the moment' where they can explore the plot point further and demonstrate their own creative sentences using their previous learning.
Non-fiction units are developed by class teachers following National Curriculum expectations and are linked to cross-curricular themes where appropriate. Our non-fiction writing is planned as a sequence which begins with children looking at the features of a piece of writing in the same genre, after which they experience a series of lessons which equip them with the experiences, grammatical knowledge and writing techniques to complete their own writing in the same genre.
Spelling
Spelling is taught throughout the week in Year 1 and 2 using the Jolly Phonics and Jolly Grammar spelling programme. In Year 3 to Year 6, spelling follows the Jane Considine Spelling Programme. This follows a two-week schedule. In week one, there is one 50-minute spelling lesson comprised of a 30-minute spelling investigation and a 20-minute Go Grapheme Grafters session. This leads on to daily 10-minute Fast Task spelling sessions in week two which are designed to: define key vocabulary, stretch pupils thinking with words/concepts that are challenging, make spelling associations and share findings with the class and explain learning. Each child also has personalised ‘Focus Five’ spellings to learn and show that they can spell by writing them correctly in their independent writing. The ‘Focus Five’ is updated as children learn the spellings of the five words.
Handwriting
We follow the Letter Joins handwriting scheme. This offers clear progression across the school, moving from securing correct letter formation to securing the joins and practicing speed and fluency, and developing a personal style. Letter Joins focuses on whole-class teaching using digital resources to enable modelling and interactive learning.
We actively develop opportunities to extend reading and writing opportunities across the wider curriculum and encourage children to use the skills they are taught during English lessons to do this successfully.
The National Curriculum emphasises the importance of all pupils’ mastery of the content taught each year and discourages the acceleration of pupils into content from subsequent years.
At Rougham, we use a ‘low threshold-high ceiling’ approach to lessons. We aim to ensure that, wherever possible, all pupils are able to successfully access whole class teaching and objectives, and every child is provided with opportunities to challenge themselves and deepen their learning throughout the course of the lesson.
In line with the new curriculum objectives, we teach our children to:
problems over time so pupils develop conceptual understanding.
explanations and justifications of how they know an answer.
What is Singapore Maths?
By following the Inspire maths scheme, we use a Singapore approach to teaching maths. Singapore maths is a style of maths teaching that is proven to develop a deeper conceptual understanding of mathematical concepts, giving children opportunities to use and apply their knowledge. It focusses on questioning and discussion, allowing children to explore and investigate key mathematical concepts through problem solving.
Concrete – Pictorial - Abstract
We use a Concrete, Pictorial, Abstract approach throughout the school. Children begin learning through the use of concrete materials (Base Ten, counters, multilink, tens frames) before progressing onto a pictorial representation of the resources. Children move onto the abstract approach once they are secure in their understanding.
Mathematical Language
To ensure consistency across the whole school, it is important that we all use the correct mathematical terminology. Use of correct mathematical terminology is critical to teaching mathematical vocabulary. Placing maths terms on a math working wall and using them daily makes ongoing review easy and fun.
The best way to learn a language - any language- is to be fully immersed in it. Every
maths classroom should be rich with language. The use of the correct terms must not just be encouraged; it must be expected. In order for children to learn to speak maths, our teachers model the language regularly and correctly.
In addition to daily maths lessons, each class also has a 10 minute ‘maths meeting’ at least 3 times a week, during which past learning and key facts are revisited and practised. One lesson a week is also dedicated to the teaching and learning of key maths facts such as multiplication tables and number bonds.
Parent Guides
Below is a link to a short video series for parents to help support your children at home. There are also tabs for downloadable resources to use at home.